When I was in junior high, I started thinking about boys. You know, in the "boys are interesting" kind of way.

I remember times in the bathroom with my friends Sheryl, Cindie, and Monika. We would sneak cigarettes and talk shit and act cool. I was very not cool, but these chicks were all tough and I thought if they accepted me, there was something tough about me, too.

Monika pierced the second holes in my ears one day, in the school bathroom with ice and a sewing needle. My sister, sitting at the dinner table with her shit-eating grin, asked, "How did you get two earrings into one hole?" which of course alerted my parents to the fact that I had disobeyed them by double piercing my ears. (Too bad I didn't narc her out when she started taking the pill at 15 and screwing her senior boyfriend. But that's in the past. I love her so much now.)

Cindie used to talk about her former life in California. I didn't believe much of it then, but now I'm not so sure. The least probable thing she talked about was her gang stuff. She used to talk about how she would be confronted by the leader of a rival girl gang who wanted to fight. The other girl would propose that Cindie would fight all the rival girls, and Cindie would say, "No, I only fight you." What? Girls fight? Girls in gangs? Where the hell was this girl from? I should have asked myself what rock I'd been under, but the answer was obvious: the suburban Edmonds rock. I never even saw a homeless person or anything until I was late into my teens, and then only when I would sneak to downtown Seattle to go on the rides in the Fun Forest.

Cindie also knew these Arab guys, Saleh and Fahad Al Humaid, who reportedly came from a very wealthy family in Saudi Arabia. The story was that, back home, they lived in a mansion with money in a big bowl that everyone in the household just reached into whenever they needed anything. I somehow didn't find it incongruous that these rich dudes were living in an apartment by Catfish Pond and selling pot to 8th graders. They drove a Dodge conversion van with mosque-shaped windows and salt-and-pepper shag carpet in the back. Yeah, they were really pimped out, and maybe they just lived in almost-Lynnwood because it was so much cooler than Saudi Arabia. Uh-huh.

Sheryl used to talk about having sex with her boyfriend. We were 14, for goodness' sake. I would listen, awed, wondering what it must be like to have some guy put his thing in your thing and shit, weren't they worried about Sheryl getting pregnant. Yeah, she'd say, but he pulls out so it's okay. I remember thinking, I haven't had my period yet, maybe I should figure out a way to lose my virginity before I can even get pregnant. But thankfully I waited until my senior year and even that wasn't all peaches and cream. Nothing wrong with the first time. The second time sucked.

In junior high, I kissed some boys. My first kiss was with Todd, outside the Maplewood Presbyterian Church on 84th Street. (Well, technically it was with Jay in his friend's apartment, but since he just stuck his tongue in my mouth with no preamble, and did it badly, I was disgusted and I don't count that one.) Todd was in drama, very kinetic in a Robin Williams sort of way, and went to rehab in the 8th grade. Now I know he was/is bipolar, but who knew at 15? Anyway, when he moved in to kiss me, I was astonished at how soft his lips were, and how natural it felt to kiss him.

I thought life would be fun with Todd, with his musical talents and his never-ending one-liners. Rumors flew - he was going to ask either me or this other far more innocent girl, Terry, to go with him. He asked her, and people even came up to me to offer their condolences. Terry was far too pure for him, and I knew that wasn't going to last, even though I didn't know what I was willing to offer. Later, when I saw Todd at our ten-year reunion, drunk and ridiculous, I was glad I hadn't pined too much for him. He was clearly still brilliant, but he had been in several failed marriages and named one of his daughters J'Me Jazz. Like Zowie Bowie, I'm sure she's changed her name. Maybe he gave her a normal middle name she can use without embarrassment.

Once I went to Jay's house and his mom wasn't home and it was clear he thought we were going to have sex. I called my friend Steve, the most upright, moral person I knew (rest in peace, Steve), and he drove up and picked me up. He never asked questions about why I needed a ride, he just came and got me. When I see Steve on the other side, I will run to him and hug him and thank him again. Once wasn't enough.

I kissed Desmond, who let Bonnie and me drip candle wax on his bare chest at a party once. I kissed Bart on my 16th birthday, and he gave my right boob a hickey that lives on in infamy among the girls I knew then. I kissed Mark in his truck around the corner from the Shaw's property. He let me kiss him. I kissed Marty and it was yucky and I knew he'd be a repulsive creep forever. He got another Sheryl pregnant and then relinquished parental rights. I hope his offspring knows it was for the best.

I kissed Randy and David in the same summer, and so did my sister. Well, she kissed Randy at least. Randy was beautiful. He was an almost-cousin; his mom and my dad grew up together, and Randy and I used to joke that if he and I got married, we would close the loop and make all the founding Edmonds families related. Hell, the Crumps married the Crows married the Ballingers married the Sorensons, it should have been our job to get the Swansons in there and finish the job. But we didn't, and that's fine. Randy isn't as beautiful as he was in high school, what with his immense belly and the three or four random children by as many women. Now he's remarried his first wife, and they finally had a baby. Life would be good if not for the outrageous child support he forks out to everyone else.

The summer of 85 is worthy of a later discussion. Too much to tell. It was the summer of the guy who looked like Cat Stevens, of Marina Beach every day, of Randy and David and Kirsten and Erika and of staking our claims. It was Point Wells and riding around in cars with boys. It was my last childhood summer.